Microsoft’s AI can now recognise speech as well as humans

Microsoft has announced its speech recognition technology now performs as well as the average human.

In a paper published by the firm’s Artificial Intelligence and Research division, engineers said the word error rate was now 5.9 per cent. That’s right where humans, with proper organic ears and brains are too.

The results were gleaned by asking humans to transcribe the same conversation. Last month, Microsoft got its score down to just 6.3%, but the new mark is the lowest error rate ever recorded.Related: Windows 10 Anniversary Update review